PARK CITY, Utah — More than a few of the 20 or so folks in this small room at the Utah Olympic Park have thrown out the phrase “bucket list,” and the air is charged with the kind of nervous energy that can only come from the giddy sense that we’re all about to do something that could kill us, but likely won’t.

And if that doesn’t spell fun, what does?

We’re in the briefing hub for the Comet bobsled ride at the site of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games, signing the waivers that say we won’t sue the park if we do wind up as sunny-side-ups in a 5-G- force Grand Slam.

But first we must listen to the very serious talk about how we shouldn’t ride the Comet if we’ve ever had kidney, heart, neck or back problems, undergone recent surgery, have high blood pressure or are afraid to have our spleens pushed out through our eyeballs.

OK, that last part is a joke. But you could see some people glancing around with wider eyes after Jon Green, the public programming manager, gave us the orientation talk about our impending activity.

“As it says on your waiver, this is a dangerous activity, and while no one has ever died doing this here, that is a risk,” he said. “We’ve only crashed a bobsled here once, and that was 10 years ago. And everyone got out and walked away from it, but they were pretty bruised.”

Then Green said he guaranteed we’d all be bruised from riding the Comet. Which made sense, because we were about to climb into one of the actual metal bobsleds used in the 2002 Olympics and ride the actual ice-slicked track for just under a mile. We would be going 75 mph. Or more.

We would be wearing helmets, but there are no seat belts in the Comet. The forces of gravity would push on us with five times their usual pressure in the turns.

Fortunately, each four-person team would have a trusty driver/ brakeman, who of course would not be braking very much, and in reality would steer us with the express purpose of going faster.

The bobsleds look like metal hot dogs. With the exception of a tiny sliver of cushion on what passes for little seats, there is no padding on the inside, just more metal.

Each bobsledder gets a piece of metal on each side to hang onto for dear life, and the instructions amount to this: In the turns, the G-forces will try to crush you like a puny little girly-girl, which no matter who you are, that’s who you are in the face of 5 Gs.

We are to either push back and try to keep our helmets from whipping around like a bobblehead doll — potentially knocking out a teammate, which would be very bad if you are sitting behind the driver — or, if you aren’t strong enough, take it like a man.

The driver of my team of three strong, beautiful, not-nervous-at- all women is Landon Phillips, who started racing bobsleds when he was 13. He raced on the America’s Cup circuit for nearly three years and also raced for the U.S. Olympic team — he was, in fact, the youngest to drive a bobsled down the Olympic track at the age of 14. To help counteract the G-forces, he lifts weights for several hours a day.

He is not a girly-girl.

The rest of the people in the orientation room are divided up, and we are told that we are competing against each other for the glory of being the fastest. We don our helmets, which makes it impossible to do anything but wait nervously to be called out to our sled.

And then it’s my team’s turn.

Because we aren’t racing for real, we don’t have to push the thing ourselves, thank heavens, and instead walk into the sled and stand until we’re told to sit down in turn, clutching our pieces of metal. Then Phillips climbs in directly in front of me, and then someone else pushes it off. Suddenly we are moving very fast, and soon after that, we are moving much, much faster, and my heart is beating really fast, even faster than when I once thought the captain of the football team was going to ask me for the math test answers, and thank God he didn’t.

All of a sudden, it feels like the foot of a giant has stepped on my upper body and is trying to fold me in half. That’s what it must feel like to be paralyzed, because it literally is impossible to move anything above the waist. Just as suddenly, I’m released, and I remember that we’re supposed to brace for the next turn. This happens repeatedly — 15 times, in fact. Between turns it’s possible for mere seconds to reorient my line of vision to glimpse the back of Phillips’ head and blurs of white along the sides.

In 78.7 seconds — about the time it took you to read the past four paragraphs — our ride was over.

Apparently, it’s also the amount of time it takes for one’s body to be completely overcome by a weird combination of adrenaline and G-forces that makes you act like you’re drunk.

Phillips hopped out and looked immediately ready to run a victory lap around the park — our team had won — while the rest of us stood up and then wavered, all woozy as though we’d been doing shots for an hour. The Comet is used to that — they have a whole slew of folks standing by to help each newbie out of the sled, remove helmets and clean up to take a team photo (which I now display proudly on my refrigerator, by the way).

A little while later, as I drove away in a rental car that at normal braking comes in at less than 1 G- force, gingerly touching several bruises, I decided that I feel about bobsledding the way Gloria Steinem once said she feels about writing: I don’t like doing it as much as I really like having done it. Not to mention that the bucket list is getting a little shorter.

The Details

Reservations are required to ride The Comet at the Utah Olympic Park (3419 Olympic Parkway, 435-658-4200, olyparks.com). Plan to spend at least two hours at the park, more if you want to tour the facility (admission is free) or participate in other activities, such as the winter zip line or sledding hill. Cost of the bobsled is $200 per person. Participants must be 16 or older; ages 16-18 may ride with an adult.

Kyle Wagner worked at The Denver Post from 2002-2014. She joined as the restaurant critic and food writer after nine years as restaurant critic for Westword. Her passions for mountain biking, hiking, snowboarding, skiing, river rafting, exploring the world — and anything that gets her out of the office — made transitioning into travel and fitness a perfect fit.